SOURCE: Brantley, Ben. “Shakespeare's Prince Hal, Told without Emotion.” New York Times (2 October 2003): E5.

In the following review, Brantley censures Richard Maxwell's Next Wave Festival production of Henry IV, Part 1, asserting that its intentional avant-garde affectlessness rendered the play “relentlessly, numbingly flat” and exposed the amateurishness of the cast.

Falstaff's belly is, as usual, certifiably round, though worn lower on the midriff than usual, suggesting a woman in the last weeks of pregnancy. Everything else in Richard Maxwell's interpretation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One—the opening production in this year's Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music—is relentlessly, numbingly flat.

There are, first of all, the wanly painted backdrops, which bring to mind a King Arthur coloring book and unscroll above a very provisional-looking rectangular stage of raw wood. Then there are the performers, who are only marginally closer to three dimensions.

Dressed in...